Beautiful game eats into Sky’s bottom line

Sky, which broadcasts Game of Thrones on its Sky Atlantic channel, added a net 112,000 customers for a total of 23.7mHome Box Office

New contracts for the Uefa Champions League and Serie A football rights ate into Sky’s first-quarter profit, its new American owner said yesterday.

Comcast said that Sky’s underlying first-quarter profit fell by 17 per cent compared with a year ago, or by 11.3 per cent if foreign exchange fluctuations were stripped out.

Comcast, the world’s largest cable television company, agreed to buy Sky for £30.6 billion last September, beating 21st Century Fox, the media company controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and Walt Disney, the entertainment and theme parks conglomerate.

In the first quarter of the year Sky added 112,000 new “customer relationships”, accounts with at least one broadband, television or phone subscription. This compared with 38,000 additions in the first quarter of 2018. Sky’s earnings before…

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